My Next USB Plan; Opinions Welcome
-
Okay, I would like ideas from people that are smarter than I am about my next great USB plan. **THE PROBLEM...** I find that I keep on having these mysterious behaviors Which cost me over an hour to locate, and it always turns out to be that the USB hub has just plain and simply worn out physically. **MY NEXT SCHEME...** - Build my own computer - Install a specific USB Expansion Controller Card Adapter (The more ports, the better) - When I buy that card adapter, I will buy two or three (identical) replacements for the future when its jacks wear out - Use the same cheap hubs that wear out after a year or two, And plug them into a specific Jack on the controller card. Put this all together, and I'm wondering if this will provide me a workable solution until the time that USB goes away and is replaced with the next Disco Baboon Technology of the future
-
Okay, I would like ideas from people that are smarter than I am about my next great USB plan. **THE PROBLEM...** I find that I keep on having these mysterious behaviors Which cost me over an hour to locate, and it always turns out to be that the USB hub has just plain and simply worn out physically. **MY NEXT SCHEME...** - Build my own computer - Install a specific USB Expansion Controller Card Adapter (The more ports, the better) - When I buy that card adapter, I will buy two or three (identical) replacements for the future when its jacks wear out - Use the same cheap hubs that wear out after a year or two, And plug them into a specific Jack on the controller card. Put this all together, and I'm wondering if this will provide me a workable solution until the time that USB goes away and is replaced with the next Disco Baboon Technology of the future
C-P-User-3 wrote:
I keep on having these mysterious behaviors Which cost me over an hour to locate, and it always turns out to be that the USB hub has just plain and simply worn out physically.
That description suggests this is not a hardware problem. Hubs should not really be breaking a lot. Perhaps it is a usage problem. Perhaps you throw your hubs, literally, into the back of a van when you go somewhere. Maybe you are using the cable itself to pull out plugs. And at odd angles. Maybe you are custom wiring something and the final product is a little rough around the edges. At any rate for situations like that you should look at how you are treating the hub. Alternatively you are running a business and you deliver systems and support them. And the hubs 'seem' to keep breaking. Several possibilities there. You have an employee that doesn't know what they are doing. You should probably spend a bit more on the hubs that you buy. Cheap general means cheaper parts and construction. Your customers are messing with something that probably shouldn't (see prior list for possibilities.) One general solution if you do have something that you unplug and then plug back in a lot is to use a short extender cable. Plug that into the hub and leave it there. Then the other device is only plugged into the extender. If anything breaks then it is the extender. And depending on the situation for the prior there are usb switches. Leave everything plugged in but use the switch to go back and forth.
-
Okay, I would like ideas from people that are smarter than I am about my next great USB plan. **THE PROBLEM...** I find that I keep on having these mysterious behaviors Which cost me over an hour to locate, and it always turns out to be that the USB hub has just plain and simply worn out physically. **MY NEXT SCHEME...** - Build my own computer - Install a specific USB Expansion Controller Card Adapter (The more ports, the better) - When I buy that card adapter, I will buy two or three (identical) replacements for the future when its jacks wear out - Use the same cheap hubs that wear out after a year or two, And plug them into a specific Jack on the controller card. Put this all together, and I'm wondering if this will provide me a workable solution until the time that USB goes away and is replaced with the next Disco Baboon Technology of the future
as jschell replied, need more details especially the type of failures. Over the past 20+ years, I have worked with usb hubs and have had 0 failures. I lost a couple, but that's a different issue. On my banker's/lawyer's desk, I have two USB hubs that have been double stick taped there for at least 10 years. One is USB 2.0, because for a long time I have had to support an Xp development environment. The other is USB 3.0. because I support a Window 10/11 environment that uses newer usb hardware. The only problem I have found is dealing with USB adapters - serial devices, ethernet, and I mix them up. Now I build my own machines. The BS from OEMs and the shortcuts they take, I just don't do that anymore. Would I install something in my desktop? Based on my experience, no. I'd daisy chain to an external hub. The one thing that I have found that drives me as a developer near insane is the stupidity of Microsoft. It's starting to creep into Unix, but we shall see. Microsoft decided to help save power, so there are default setting that turn off your USB devices. OS update? Let's turn it off. Wait the user explicitly said not to do that - meh, f' the user, climate change. And their goes my 6 month soak test. I have 15 years of h/w - laptops - around me. Almost all of my cycles (insert/remove/insert) are on the laptops. No failures. This leads me to suspect that something else is going on.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.